Activists target RI's illegal timber trade

Activists target RI's illegal timber trade

Jamie Wilson, Guardian News Service, London

Waiting for the first shards of light to break through the night
sky, the two inflatable speedboats were running without
navigation lights. The lead boat flashed a torch twice, and the
two ribs powered up and began cutting through the swell of the
English Channel.

Their target, a 20,000-tonne cargo ship suspected of carrying
illegally felled timber from the endangered rainforests of
Indonesia, was lit up like a Christmas tree on the horizon.

Six Greenpeace activists, dressed in orange survival suits
with "Forest Crime Unit" emblazoned on the back, would use caving
hook ladders to climb the side of the ship, board and then occupy
the vessel in an attempt to stop it from unloading its cargo at
Tilbury docks on the Thames.

Greenpeace had been tracking the MV Greveno for months, since
the campaign ship Rainbow Warrior watched it load a Europe-bound
cargo of plywood from a sawmill known to have used timber from a
supposedly protected orang utan refuge in Tanjung Puting national
park.

The ship is also carrying timber from an area where illegal
logging is threatening the survival of the Sumatran tiger.

According to Greenpeace, behind much of the plywood that
originates in Indonesia's rainforests there is a web of criminal
activity, corruption and bloodshed, and the arrival of the
Greveno, which has already unloaded some of its cargo in France,
is symptomatic of the way EU governments are not doing enough to
stop the illicit trade.

Home to the longest list of endangered species in the world,
Indonesia's rainforest is disappearing faster than any other. An
area the size of Belgium is destroyed every year and experts
predict that by 2010 most of the lowland rainforest will be gone
from Borneo and Sumatra.

Activists on board the Rainbow Warrior watched the Greveno
loading plywood from the Ariabami Sari sawmill. Last year an
Indonesian government investigation found that the owner of the
sawmill, Korindo, was buying logs from timber dealers who have
been felling trees in the orang utan refuge.

The endangered ape is found only in Sumatra and Borneo and
their numbers have halved in 10 years.

Despite the investigation, the mill was not shut down, and the
company has refused to take part in a British trade initiative to
assess the legality of Indonesian timber operations.

The ship is also known to be carrying timber supplied by a
company that operates in Sumatra, buying timber in an area
renowned for illegal logging which is threatening the survival of
the island's tiger.

Last Wednesday was just the latest skirmish between the cargo
vessel and the Greenpeace campaigners. As the Greenpeace protest
began, the two boats approached the MV Greveno, coming from the
stern at high speed and drawing alongside the lowest point of the
deck three metres above their heads.

Using an unwieldy telescopic pole, the boarding party
struggled to hook the tiny wire caving ladder on to the rail of
the ship as their boat pitched and yawed in the Atlantic swell.
The crew of the Greveno were ready for them.

The first boarding attempt had come on Tuesday morning when
the same six activists had set out from the Greenpeace ship the
Esperanza and approached the then unsuspecting Greveno.

For a moment as they drew alongside they thought they had
managed to attach the wire ladder, but the hook came loose and
dropped into the sea. The boarding party struggled to reattach
it, but had lost the element of surprise.

They were now in for their own unpleasant shock. Pictures
taken by the Rainbow Warrior in Indonesia suggested the crew were
mostly Filipinos, who in the past have usually reacted mildly
when Greenpeace activists have attempted to board ships.

But the smiling faces in the photographs bore no resemblance
to the thick-set sailors of eastern European appearance who were
now on deck. They were not compliant.

The captain had sounded the alarm and by the time the boarding
team tried to attach the ladder several crew were on hand to kick
it away. The crew also had high-powered deck hoses.

Eventually the speedboats were forced to retreat. The pattern
was repeated as the hook was kicked away and the hoses uncoiled.
But the campaigners vowed to continue harassing the ship, and
last night they were planning further action in the mouth of the
Thames where the Greveno was due early.

"We're certainly not giving up,' said Greenpeace's forest
campaigner, Andy Tait. "We're going to do everything we can to
disrupt the unloading of this ship."

The UK Timber Trade Federation has admitted that not one of
Indonesia's sawmills can provide sufficient evidence of legality
or sustainability for the British market, and three of the main
high street builders merchants, including Jewson and Travis
Perkins, have stopped buying Indonesian plywood because of
concerns about illegal trade.

But while many European governments have spoken out about the
illegal trade in timber there are few laws to stop it from being
imported.

Greenpeace is calling on the British and other EU governments
to introduce legislation to make it a crime to import and market
illegally logged timber and wood products. In the meantime the
organization has vowed to continue to harass ships it believes
are carrying illegally felled timber.